1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an elevating apparatus, particularly to an elevating apparatus including a belt and pulleys.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional automated warehouse includes, for example, a pair of racks, a stacker crane, a warehousing station, and a delivery station. The pair of racks is spaced apart by a prescribed spacing in the forward-rearward direction. The stacker crane is provided moveably in the left-right direction between the front and rear racks. The warehousing station is disposed on a side of one of the racks. The delivery station is disposed on another side of the other one of the racks. The racks have numerous article storage shelves at the top, bottom, left, and right.
The stacker crane includes a travelling truck, a lift platform that is freely elevatable along a mast provided to the travelling truck, and an article transfer apparatus (e.g., a slide fork that is slidably provided in the forward-rearward direction) that is provided to the lift platform.
The stacker crane includes an elevating drive mechanism for lifting or lowering the elevating platform along the mast. The elevating drive mechanism includes, for example, an endless belt having both ends fixed to the elevating platform, a plurality of pulleys around which the endless belt is hung over, and a elevating drive motor for rotationally driving the drive pulley (e.g., refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-255316).
A conventional belt tension mechanism is a mechanism for moving the pulley in a vertical direction, and includes a pushing bolt.
However, according to such a tension adjustment mechanism, the pulley and the pushing bolt are arranged in the vertical direction, and therefore it becomes necessary to ensure a space more than an adjustment margin above or below of the pulley.